There are a lot of people who I’ve studied with before in my classes, so it kind of feels like I’m getting to know all the other people who are currently studying the BA Internet Studies. I’ve also looked at my assessment timeline, and it’s pretty solid – basically something due roughly every 2 weeks for the entire study period

We’ll see how things go this time around! New computer just in time as well, nearly finished getting it set up and configured, just a few more things to do and then it’s all go.

This time around, I’m only doing one unit, called EBS11: Strategic E-Business. This should be interesting, if for no other reason than it’s offered through RMIT, rather than Curtin, which delivers most of my other units.

The unit has 3 assignments, worth 30, 40 and 30% of the total, in order. They look like they are going to be a bit of writing

On first glances, I can make the following observations;

1. Their LMS, “SERF” looks terrible. The UI is a shocker, and it’s not intuitive at all.
2. The unit looks quite comprehensive, although I suppose that will remain to be seen once I start reading etc
3. There’s an external text book, but I think I’ll hold off on buying it unless I really need to (this is an elective after all).

I’ll keep things up to date on here on the way through, and hopefully this unit won’t make my festive season too much of a drag!

The stupid thing is that in the end, I knew my password, all I needed was someone to tell me what my username was, so that
I could try out a couple passwords and guess the right one. I don’t even want to get started on how I feel about finally
getting online, only to find that I still can’t start — I’ll email the course co-ordinator and see if he knows when we might
actually start…

I have also arranged my registration for 2 units for SP2, 2003; they are NET12 (Internet Studies) and REA11 (Applied Reasoning!)

I’m looking forward to REA11, I just hope it’s not too abstract or anything strange and annoying (the whole “argue by changing the subject” approach really gets me), but I am reserving judgement until I get into it NET12 should be an interesting introduction to the core of the degree I think, so that will be interesting to see what things are going to be like

Ahhh bureaucracy, how we love you!

Now I just have to wait and hear from Matt, hopefully to get the good news that I can have 12 units of approved advanced standing into the degree!

I don’t know for sure if this means that my application hasn’t got there yet, so I emailed the guy who is supposed to be looking at my advanced standing (Matt), but he says that he hasn’t received it yet.

Now I have emailed LSN/CEA/OLA@Curtin to find out if it made it to Curtin at all, but who ever knows with that place – I’ve worked there, and I know how easy it is for mail (etc!) to go missing and never be seen again. *Fingers Crossed!*

When I worked at Curtin Uni, I worked in one of the many divisions which were pursuing online education as a feasible option. The area that I worked in (SMEC) actually delivered all of their postgraduate degrees in an entirely online fashion. We actually ended up using straight, plain old HTML because we needed to get everything on CD-ROM as well as the ‘net, and it turned out to be easier that way. It was an interesting time and taught me some good stuff about working with the limitations of certain technology, dependant on your users.

I’ll be sure to keep you all posted on my experiences within the Hive (which is now called the HarvestRoad LCMS for those interested).

I am the person who assesses these – basically, I’d be looking at 8 units (out of 24) advanced standing – how does that sound?

and I was thinking – “bugger, that’s less than I was hoping for, so I trudged along to read the next message which said…

Just remembered – since you have units at Curtin already…12 units (which is the maximum I can give)…

and now, funnily enough, I have a very large smile on my face! This is excellent! With only 12 units remaining, I might still be able to finish by the end of 2004!

One thing that has really blown me away has been his willingness to suggest that I enrol via Open Learning Australia, which appears to be a much better method of study for me (assuming that I can maintain my own discipline), given that I currently work full time.

I have had to look again at what I wanted to do, because my previous enrolment attempt was unsuccessful. This is because all of the school-leavers get first option at the positions being offered, and they appear to have filled them all this year, so my application wasn’t even really considered. This left me with no enrolment, even though that’s what I had planned on doing. Enrolling through OLA allows me to start studying, without having to jump through the normal University hoops of enrolment. At OLA, I just sign up for the degree ($100), and then start studying units at my own pace.

This brings me to the next cool thing with OLA – the study periods. OLA works on 4 study periods, rather than the normal Uni-year of only 2 semesters. This means that if (theoretically,) I could keep up the pace of 2 units per study period (which I don’t think I can), then I would be able to complete the remainder of my 3 year degree (minus advanced standing) in about 2 years! Apart from this, it just means that you are much closer to being able to study at your own pace, since you have more control over your start-times and the time of year that you study — I like it.

I am in the final stages of completing my application for advanced standing, which will go along with my application for entry into the degree at Curtin, via OLA. Once that is done, I can hopefully get an idea of the number of units that I can “skip” when I start study, and know where to start with things. My official target is 9 units